


And They Were Roommates

by MrsCalculation



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Family Dynamics, Gen, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:47:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21880450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsCalculation/pseuds/MrsCalculation
Summary: Yuuri has never had a younger brother before. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t know how to handle Phichit.He decides not to like him.
Relationships: Minor Katsuki Mari & Katsuki Yuuri, Phichit Chulanont & Katsuki Yuuri, background Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 8
Kudos: 43
Collections: Holidays!!! on Ice (2019)





	And They Were Roommates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [C-chan (1001paperboxes)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1001paperboxes/gifts).



> Happy holidays!!! [C-chan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1001paperboxes/pseuds/C-chan) requested a fic on how Phichit and Yuuri became roommates. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Warning for a very brief mention of alcohol use!

Yuuri has never had a younger brother before. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t know how to handle Phichit.

His own sister had teased him endlessly growing up, yet always defended him the second someone else made fun of him. Phichit doesn’t seem like the type to be made fun of, really, or maybe it’s just that he wouldn’t care if he was. Yuuri also isn’t comfortable being the one to do the teasing, not when he doesn’t know him and he’s so tiny and bouncy and full of joy.

He doesn’t really have much to go on, and it’s stressing him out. Phichit had immediately imprinted on him, and Yuuri doesn’t know what to do about it.

He decides not to like Phichit.

  
  


It doesn’t go so well.

Phichit is incredibly endearing, completely unashamed of the things he loves, and willing to speak his mind. Yuuri finds it particularly cute when Phichit starts talking excitedly about something he loves, realizes that, as good as his English is, he doesn’t know a word, then says it in Thai while going a dictionary spiral of words he doesn’t know in English. He starts talking about etymology like the nerd he is, and Yuuri refuses to admit that it’s both impressive and precious.

Phichit is a huge nerd. He’s a huge enough nerd that he’s only in Detroit to do a summer workshop in linguistics for non-students, not skate. He can’t be here majoring in linguistics because he hasn’t even finished secondary school in Thailand, which isn’t even required, but he’s always loved school so much that he _chose_ to balance a secondary education and his skating.

“Do you want to know why I really learned English?” he asks Yuuri one day after talking about how much better Phichit’s English is than Yuuri’s was at his age.

 _Not really_ , Yuuri thinks, but he asks politely, “why?”

Phichit leans in but doesn’t lower his volume. “You know that movie _The King and the Skater_?”

“Um, yeah?” Yuuri _has_ heard of it, but only because everyone he knows has skated to something from the soundtrack at least once. He’s never actually seen it.

“It’s my favorite movie.” Phichit unlocks his phone to show Yuuri the background, which looks like vaguely-familiar art of the vaguely-familiar title characters. Yuuri nods and makes an entirely forced appreciative noise. “And I wanted to be able to read the fanfiction of it, but it was mostly in English.”

Yuuri is in the middle of nodding politely when he actually processes what Phichit said. “Wait, what?”

Phichit keeps going. “Yeah, and once I had read a lot and it was pretty obvious that a lot of people didn’t know anything about Thailand when they were writing, I offered to help them if they ever needed someone to reference for details to include and stuff. It’s pretty fun, actually.”

“Huh. That’s pretty cool,” Yuuri says, and he actually really means it.

“Right?” Phichit says, and he’s off, talking about all the random things he’s learned and all the cool people he’s talked to because of that movie.

Yuuri still doesn’t want to like Phichit, but it isn’t easy.

  
  
Originally Phichit was only going to spend the summer training with Celestino while he did his summer program, but Celestino finds him promising, and he’s excelling in both his academics and his skating, so he stays. It takes a lot of calls to his school in Thailand to work something out, but he eventually finds a compromise where if he finishes certain requirements for school online, he can apply to be a full-time student at the university here.

Yuuri hates it.

In the two semesters since he’s started school in Detroit, it’s felt like he hasn’t had a roommate at all. The guy who was supposed to live with him—Alex, Yuuri thinks his name was, but he honestly isn’t sure—had been vaguely racist but not actively belligerent, preferred parties over classes, and practically lived with his girlfriend in some place that wasn’t this apartment. Yuuri isn’t sure if Alex dropped out or was kicked out, but sometime about halfway through winter semester, he came by to get what few belongings he did have here, wished Yuuri all the best with “that skating thing,” and said he was leaving Michigan and wouldn’t be back. Yuuri didn’t really have a lot to go on, but he thought Alex was a mostly-okay guy if you ignored his total ignorance of any country outside the US, so Yuuri hoped wherever he ended up was the right place for him. 

Now Yuuri has this tiny child who deserves protecting but doesn’t actually need it as a roommate indefinitely, and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

He calls his sister.

“Ha! Now you know how I felt when you showed up,” she says from half a world away, completely deadpan as always.

“Mari-nee-chan,” he whines into the line, “you’re not _helping_.”

He’s met with silence, but he knows Mari is only thinking, not ignoring him.

“Look,” she finally says, “Obviously I didn’t have a choice but to love you.” Yuuri knows the corner of her mouth is twisting up ever so slightly right now, daring him to take the easy bait, so he doesn’t. “But if you really don’t want to live with this kid, just say that. Tell him that as long as he keeps his mouth shut and his half of the apartment clean, there won’t be any issues, but that you aren’t interested in being friends.”

“Nngh,” Yuuri says in response, because that requires him to initiate a conversation and is also _mean_.

“But Yuuri. I really don’t think it’ll be that bad. You said he skates, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you already have more in common with him than you and I ever had, and we made it work, so I think you’ll be fine.” She laughs at the sound of Yuuri’s spluttering. “If it isn’t fine, you can always call me.”  
  
“Okay,” he agrees eventually.

“Good. Now I have to go, it’s getting late here. Talk to you soon.”

“Okay, good night,” he says, and it feels weird because it’s still morning here.

“Have a nice day,” Mari says, then hangs up.

A few minutes later, Yuuri’s phone lights up with a picture of Vicchan sleeping with his head on Yuuri’s bed and the rest of his tiny body sinking to the floor.

“We’re both proud of you,” the caption says, and Yuuri just grins and saves the picture to his phone.

  
  


They’re approaching the end of Yuuri’s third semester when Phichit asks if Yuuri plans on going to Japan any time soon.

“I’m not sure,” Yuuri says carefully, not sure where this is going. “Now isn’t the best time to take off from training, but with break…” he trails off, still staring at the anthology in front of him.

“I won’t be going home, either!” Phichit says, which is definitely not what Yuuri said, but okay. “We can hang out, if you want!”

Yuuri doesn’t want, but he’s never been good at saying no. “If I’m here, yeah, sure,” he says, then turns back to the reading he’s trying to do. He has to write a paper on some early modern English play for one of his gen ed literature classes, and he keeps having to highlight words he doesn’t know and scribble translations off to the side. It’s taking way longer than it should.

“I’ll let you finish working, but here,” Phichit says, then places a small covered basket in Yuuri’s peripheral vision. “I won’t tell Ciao Ciao if you don’t. I got this from the nice lady who works at the Japanese market you like. _Otanjōbiomedetō_!” he says, then runs away.

Yuuri lifts opens the basket and lifts up the cloth to find a sealed container full of steaming katsudon and takoyaki, with a small mango cake wrapped and tucked in the other corner. There’s a note on top in very careful kanji that says _happy birthday!_ , written again in English and what Yuuri can only assume is Thai.

It’s really hard to dislike Phichit.

  
  


As it turns out, Phichit _loves_ Christmas. Yuuri doesn’t understand why because Phichit has said himself that he never really celebrated Christmas in Thailand, but he’s super excited to do it in Detroit.

“It seems so fun and bright and cute!” Phichit says a week after Yuuri’s birthday. They’re walking around just off campus, bundled up because it’s cold and flurrying, choosing random book stores and tea shops to enter. Phichit knows Yuuri is stressed about upcoming exams, so, like the good not-friend he is, he’s dragging Yuuri around anywhere that his textbooks aren’t.

“I guess it’s too loud for me,” Yuuri says, peeking into a comic book shop then turning to look at Phichit, who’s already making his way in. “It’s pretty, but it’s everywhere all the time, and I don’t like that.”

Phichit heads down the stairs instead of heading into the main store, making a beeline for the board game section in the basement. “That’s true,” he says as he picks up a game to read the back of the box. “I can put up lights in only my room, then.”

Yuuri stops in front of a weird wood wall with built-in shelves as if he’s looking at a book there. He hadn’t realized Phichit wanted to decorate the apartment.

“Well, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with putting lights in our front windows,” Yuuri says after a painfully long moment. “They really are pretty.”

Yuuri looks up and Phichit is beaming at him with all of his tiny child energy, then he’s talking about all the different options they have for lights.

“I like the colorful ones, but the white lights are classier. They come in stars, too, but should we do the classic shape? We could do stars in one window and classic in the other, but then it wouldn’t look balanced, and if it’s all about the aesthetic, it’s got to be balanced, so I think…”

Yuuri may regret this. Christmas really is too loud.

  
  


Yuuri comes back from campus early on Monday afternoon, since Celestino gave him a few days off in preparation for exams. Phichit jumps from where he’s standing in the corner of their tiny living room, clearly a little startled.

Yuuri looks at the front windows. “You did this all while I was gone?” he asks.

For half a second, Phichit almost looks embarrassed, but Yuuri knows him well enough to know that’s impossible. “It’s not done. I didn’t think you would be back yet.”

Yuuri looks to the blue and white lights perfectly framed around their windows. They aren’t on, but they look painstakingly arranged. “What isn’t done about them?”

“I mean, the lights are done, but I still have a couple other things to do.” Yuuri notices that Phichit been standing surprisingly still, something he only sees happen if he’s trying to get the perfect selfie. “Give me a second.”

“Okay?” Yuuri says, then Phichit whips around and bends over, arranging something in front of him.

“Okay, can you come over here?” he says after a few seconds of fiddling around.

What Yuuri sees as he approaches is the tiniest of fake twigs with a few fake leaves here and there dropping over the skirt of a tiny blue blanket. It’s weighed down by a tiny ornament, perfectly balanced so that the tree doesn’t actually fall. He gets closer and sees that the ornament is a little brown dog with a blue Santa hat on, and his heart warms.

It’s a curly little poodle, just like Vicchan.

“Tada!” Phichit says as Yuuri kneels to get a better look. “What do you think? I didn’t want to get a full big Christmas tree so you wouldn’t be overwhelmed, so I got this instead!”

Yuuri touches the little ornament gently, twisting it to see it better. “Where did you get a tree like this?” Yuuri asks, highly doubting that anyone would market a tree this flimsy as a Christmas tree.

“Uh, the store? They’re super popular!”

Yuuri looks up at him with a blank stare. “Why?”

“Yuuri.” Phichit sounds more serious than Yuuri has heard him before. “It’s from _A Charlie Brown Christmas_.”

Yuuri continues with the blank stare. “ _Yuuri_. Have you not seen _A Charlie Brown Christmas_?” 

Yuuri shakes his head.

Phichit stares, open-mouthed.

Phichit pulls Yuuri onto the couch with a very serious “don’t move,” then runs into his room to get his laptop.

They watch _A Charlie Brown Christmas_ , then _It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown_ , then, because they’re already headed down that path, _The Nightmare Before Christmas_.

By the time they’re done, it’s dark enough for Phichit to turn on the lights in their windows. He takes a dozen selfies, insisting he has to post this on Facebook and Instagram. Yuuri doesn’t even have an Instagram.

He consents to a single selfie with Phichit anyway.

  
  


It kind of becomes their thing to make a big deal out of every holiday. It makes Phichit more tolerable, Yuuri tells himself, even though he doesn’t have to _tolerate_ him at at all. Yuuri really likes him, if he’s being honest, but he can’t admit that to anyone.

Well, he can, just as long as that _anyone_ isn’t Mari. She doesn’t need to know she was right.

That first year, Phichit made sure to buy chicken to make fried chicken on Christmas Day, which Yuuri thought was hilarious, considering his family never ate the chicken themselves but always cooked it for guests at the onsen. They had a great time making it, though, even if Yuuri didn’t like the popping of hot oil onto his skin.

They pull out the tiny fake tree with the little Vicchan every year. Yuuri eventually finds out that Phichit painted the tiny hat blue himself because he couldn’t find any with blue hats.

“I thought you would like it more than the red,” Phichit tells him. “I don’t see you wear a lot of red.”

Christmas becomes Yuuri’s favorite holiday.

Phichit’s absolute favorite holiday becomes Valentine’s Day, and it’s Yuuri’s least favorite. He doesn’t talk to enough people for him to get personal gifts on it, and he doesn’t like chocolate that much, anyway.

The second February they’re living together, a few months after Phichit’s senior debut, Phichit receives dozens of Valentine’s presents sent to the rink where they practice.

“Oh,” he says casually, sorting through what’s edible and what’s stuffed animals. He shoves all the stuffed animals in his bag to take home.

“You’re popular,” Yuuri says dumbly as he ties his skates. That much is obvious. Phichit hadn’t placed at Grand Prix events this year, but the crowd responded to him beautifully, and he became the first Thai figure skater to qualify to compete in the men’s singles at Worlds this year. Yuuri couldn’t wait to see him perform.

“Guess so,” Phichit says, sorting the candy further by what’s fruit-based and what’s chocolate-based.

It doesn’t come up during practice, but when they get back to their lockers, there’s a little note and a rose taped to Phichit's locker from one of their rinkmates, a girl Phichit’s age who’s still in juniors, and Yuuri can’t help but laugh at the confused look on Phichit’s face.

“You’d better start thinking of a White Day gift,” he says, and Phichit sticks his tongue out at him.

Rude. Obviously he can’t ever think of Phichit as a friend when he’s so disrespectful.

  
  


Yuuri comes back from his first Grand Prix Final devastated. He’s in no state to prepare for his exams.

Somehow, Phichit helps him get through. He doesn’t quite remember how, but Phichit had studied with him, and in the middle of his exams, Yuuri could recall Phichit’s still-boyish voice reciting facts to him.

The second he finished his last test, Yuuri went home and passed out.

He woke up to the sound of one of Phichit’s hamsters thunking around the apartment in a little hamster ball, running into the coffee table directly in front of the couch Yuuri had passed out on.

“Hey,” Phichit says when Yuuri sits up. He’s in the kitchen, quietly preparing tea. “I got you something.”

A bottle of rosé appears on the table in front of him, then Phichit appears on the couch next to him.

“How?” Yuuri asks. Phichit is too young to buy alcohol in this country.

Phichit shrugs. “A friend.”

Yuuri can count on one hand the number of times he and Phichit have hung out with other people without each other in the past two years. They stopped having non-mutual friends a long time ago. “Who?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Phichit says, then pours a glass. There is only one glass in front of them. Phichit sips deliberately at his tea.

“Thank you,” Yuuri says, then tries the wine. It tastes like it cost more than ten dollars. He’s impressed.

Half an hour later and he’s tipsy.

“You know,” he says quietly, and it’s a testament to how much Phichit cares about him that he looks away from his movie. “I used to try to hate you.”

Phichit laughs. “Yeah, I knew that.”

Yuuri turns to look at him, tries to hold his eye, but he gets uncomfortable too quickly for it to be worth it. “You did?”

“Obviously,” Phichit says, then laughs again. “You were so uncomfortable with me. It was obvious you didn’t want me around.”

Yuuri looks at him again, then shakes his head. “No, I _wanted_ to hate you. I wanted you to be another annoying roommate I could just hate. But it was hard.” Yuuri screws up his face, which he knows is extremely rude, but he’s thinking of how to phrase something and his head isn’t all there right now. “You were too much like family, and it’s hard enough being away from family, so I thought I could just hate it away.”

Phichit stares for a second, then blinks, then laughs. “I’ve never had a brother until right now,” he says, ignoring Yuuri’s _hey!_ of protest. “I knew older brothers were dumb, but I didn’t know it was this bad.”

“I take it back,” Yuuri says, curling as far away from Phichit as he can while still remaining on their one couch. “Hating you isn’t hard.”

Phichit laughs, then starts humming along to the musical number in the movie like a nerd.

Watch him ever try to say it again, but hating Phichit is impossible.

  
  


“Yuuri!” Phichit greets enthusiastically when the line connects.

Yuuri smiles at him. “Hey, Phichit-kun! How are you?”

“Great! How are you?”

“Really good, too. Hey, I wanted to get your opinion on something really quick before Viktor comes back.”

Phichit grins ridiculously large. “I already told you I’d be your best man, there’s no need to ask me formally.”

Yuuri laughs. “That’s not it, not yet. I need you to look at something.” He walks towards Makkachin as quickly as he can before the moment is gone forever. “What do you think?” he asks as he flips the camera.

Phichit squeals.

“I love it!” he says and does an excited little dance on camera. Yuuri flips the camera back around. “You still have the ornament, right?”

“Of course.”

“Try to get a picture with it!” Phichit says, and Yuuri hurries to his room to grab the ornament off his desk before Makkachin wakes up.

It’s a minor miracle Makkachin _doesn’t_ wake up for the amount of time Phichit spends making Yuuri rearrange the shot to get the perfect photo.

“No one’s going to care, Phichit-kun, it’s cute either way.”

“ _I_ care, Yuuri,” he says seriously, which is enough for Yuuri to stop complaining for the last sixty seconds it takes to get the perfect shot.

Once they have the shot, they just talk for a while about anything and everything, until Yuuri finally asks, “what are you doing for Christmas this year?”

“Probably not anything,” Phichit admits. “It isn’t the same without you. What about you?”

“I’m going to Japan with Viktor for his birthday,” Yuuri says, “but we aren’t really doing anything for Christmas.” They’re both quiet for a moment, thinking of their little Charlie Brown tree and how much has changed since their first Christmas in Detroit. “Would you maybe want to come?” Yuuri asks, surprising himself.

Phichit visibly perks up, but says, “I couldn’t! That’s for you two!”

“Phichit-kun,” Yuuri says seriously. “Viktor’s birthday is for Viktor. Christmas is for us. Besides, you’ve never come to the onsen. If you can find the time to come, I’ll pay for your flight.” Well, Viktor will pay, technically, but it’s all the same to Phichit.

“Ask Viktor and your family if it’s okay first,” Phichit says, “but I would love to.”

Yuuri hears the front door open, then Viktor’s voice greeting him. “I can ask right now,” Yuuri says.

“Hey, Viktor,” he says, still holding the phone with Phichit as he goes to kiss Viktor. “What do you think about—”

“Yuuri,” Viktor cuts him off, “why is Makkachin wearing a blue Santa hat?”

Yuuri hears Phichit cracking up in the background.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, call me out on any formatting/grammar/continuity errors, and feedback is appreciated!
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://mrscalculation.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/MrsCalculation)


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